UNDP joins Tech Giants in Partnership on AI

AI can sort through vast amounts of data to produce valuable insights for achieving the SDGs. (Photo: shutterstock)

NEW YORK, August 1 – UNDP joins the Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (AI), a consortium of companies, academics, and NGOs working to ensure that AI is developed in a safe, ethical, and transparent manner. Founded in 2016 by the tech giants - Amazon, DeepMind/Google, Facebook, IBM, and Microsoft - It has since been joined by industry leaders such as Accenture, Intel, Oxford Internet Institute - University of Oxford, eBay, as well as non profit organizations such as UNICEF and Human Rights Watch and many more.

Through the partnership, UNDP’s Innovation Facility will work with partners and communities to responsibly test and scale the use of AI to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. By harnessing the power of data, we can inform risk, policy and program evaluation, we also can utilize robotics and Internet of Things (IoT) to collect data and reach the previously deemed unreachable - to leave no one behind.

UNDP’s AI portfolio is growing rapidly. Drones and remote sensing are used to improve data collection and inform decisions: in the Maldives for disaster preparedness, and in Uganda to engage refugee and host communities in jointly developing infrastructures. We partnered with IBM to automate UNDP’s Rapid Integrated Assessment, aligning national development plans and sectoral strategies with the 169 Sustainable Development Goals’ targets; and with the UNEP, UNDP has launched the UN Biodiversity Lab, powered by MapX. The spatial data platform will help countries support conservation efforts and accelerate delivery of the 2030 Agenda.

In line with UNDP’s Strategic Plan 2018-2021, innovation plays a central role in fulfilling the organization’s mission and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. Benjamin Kumpf, UNDP’s Innovation Facility Lead states, “advances in robotics and AI have the potential to radically redefine human development pathways. The path to such redefinitions entails concrete AI experiments to increase the effectiveness of our work as well as norm-setting: we have to think beyond guidelines for ethical AI to designing accountability frameworks.”

The Partnership on AI aims to advance public understanding of AI, formulate best practices, and serve as an open platform for discussion and engagement about AI and its influences on people and society.

About UNDP Innovation

UNDP works in over 170 countries and territories, helping to achieve the eradication of poverty, and the reduction of inequalities and exclusion. In 2014, UNDP established the Innovation Facility to foster innovation for development, with the support of the Government of Denmark. The Innovation Facility provides technical support and funding to UNDP teams around the world to test frontier tech and apply new approaches to deliver better results.

The Partnership on AI is a consortium of companies, academics, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and nonprofits dedicated to ensuring that artificial intelligence (AI) – the capacity for computer programs to learn, decide, and mimic other intelligent human behavior – is developed in a safe, ethical, and transparent manner. Tech giants Amazon, DeepMind/Google, Facebook, IBM, and Microsoft founded the non-profit organization to advance public understanding of AI, formulate best practices, and serve as an open platform for discussion and engagement about AI and its influences on people and society.